PROCEEDINGS OF THIRTY-SIXTH FRUIT-GROWERS ' CONVENTION. 37 



to preach in the apple industry, it is also good in other industries. I 

 would like to have some discussion on that one point, and I would like 

 for .Mr. John Markley to come forward and say a few words, if he will, 

 on that point. Mr. Markley is one of the old members of this conven- 

 tion. He was active twenty-five years ago in the work and is active now. 

 I have the pleasure of introducing to you Mr. Markley. 



ME. MARKLEY. Ladies and Gentlemen: I am afraid I have got 

 m\ ^elf into a position where I can't do you any good. The horticultural 

 commissioners the other day held a meeting up in my neighborhood, in 

 Sutter County, and. more to fill up than anything else, we brought up 

 the question of the advantages of pedigreed stock, and I gave my per- 

 sonal experiences in pedigreed stock. I said that I found when I went 

 to the race course I was considered a fool if I bet on anything in a 

 trotting race without it had a pedigree; that when a man went to raise 

 hogs he first had a pedigree ; in the dairy business was first a pedigree 

 and then the individual animal. In Sonoma County I had a prune 

 orchard and there was one spot of very rich land overflowed with sand 

 which gave it a fine mulch. There were over 100 trees there 1 which 

 would bear from 200 to 400 pounds apiece. There was one tree on the 

 ranch — I had 12,000 trees — that from which for thirteen years I never 

 picked more than 20 pounds a year, whilst others bore all the time. 

 The boys on the ranch called it the bastard. I examined the orchard 

 pretty carefully and I found that I had a great many bastards. After 

 awhile, looking around on the other side, I found I had a few trees and 

 they grew of different shape from the others and bore wonderful crops 

 of prunes. I kept a record of these trees for four years, and if all my 

 orchard had borne as those did I would have had about double the 

 quantity of fruit. The application 1 wanted to make was. where I live 

 we raise a great many Thompson's Seedless grapes and they are shy 

 bearers sometimes, or very erratic in bearing. About three years ago a 

 man in great pride showed me a vine that had a great many grapes on it, 

 and I kept on looking and he said. 'AVhal arc you looking for?" I said, 

 "I find nine vines here. Either one of these has as much vigor as this 

 one that has a crop on it and if these vines all over the vineyard had as 

 much on it would make you rich." He said, "I am afraid it might 

 bear them to death." I said, "I don't think it will, but if it does you 

 can afford to let them die." Mr. Frank Swett told me that prior to 

 picking the grapes in his vineyard he went up there with a brush and 

 a paint pot and marked the vines with a stroke up and down that had a 

 large crop on them and the next year he did the same thing and the 

 next year again, just before the picking. He says, "Whenever I have 

 a vine with three marks on it I know it has borne a heavy crop three 

 years in succession. My vineyard will average about six tons and these 

 pedigreed vines about ten." That makes quite a difference. I went 

 there to buy cuttings. He says, "Oh, I have sold all the cuttings." I 

 was buying cuttings for two dollars a thousand; I went there to pay 

 him ten dollars a thousand for his pedigreed cuttings, but I could not 

 get them. He had sold out. I believe it is very beneficial, and I believe 

 that if somebody in this State would start a nursery and grow pedi- 

 greed stock and guarantee it, it would do the State- a great good ; and I 



